The Beetle Part 29

'You know how you have always laughed at me because of my objection to-c.o.c.kroaches, and how, in spring, the neighbourhood of May-bugs has always made me uneasy. As soon as I got into bed I felt that something of the kind was in the room.'

'Something of what kind?'

'Some kind of-beetle. I could hear the whirring of its wings; I could hear its droning in the air; I knew that it was hovering above my head; that it was coming lower and lower, nearer and nearer. I hid myself; I covered myself all over with the clothes, -then I felt it b.u.mping against the coverlet. And, Sydney!' She drew closer. Her blanched cheeks and frightened eyes made my heart bleed. Her voice became but an echo of itself. 'It followed me.'

'Marjorie!'

'It got into the bed.'

'You imagined it.'

'I didn't imagine it. I heard it crawl along the sheets, till it found a way between them, and then it crawled towards me. And I felt it-against my face.-And it's there now.'

'Where?'

She raised the forefinger of her left hand.

'There!-Can't you hear it droning?'

She listened, intently. I listened too. Oddly enough, at that instant the droning of an insect did become audible.

'It's only a bee, child, which has found its way through the open window.'

'I wish it were only a bee, I wish it were.-Sydney, don't you feel as if you were in the presence of evil? Don't you want to get away from it, back into the presence of G.o.d?'

'Marjorie!'

'Pray, Sydney, pray!-I can't!-I don't know why, but I can't!

She flung her arms about my neck, and pressed herself against me in paroxysmal agitation. The violence of her emotion bade fair to unman me too. It was so unlike Marjorie,-and I would have given my life to save her from a toothache. She kept repeating her own words,-as if she could not help it.

'Pray, Sydney, pray!'

At last I did as she wished me. At least, there is no harm in praying,-I never heard of its bringing hurt to anyone. I repeated aloud the Lord's Prayer,--the first time for I know not how long. As the divine sentences came from my lips, hesitatingly enough, I make no doubt, her tremors ceased. She became calmer. Until, as I reached the last great pet.i.tion, 'Deliver us from evil,' she loosed her arms from about my neck, and dropped upon her knees, close to my feet. And she joined me in the closing words, as a sort of chorus.

'For Thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory, for ever and ever. Amen.'

When the prayer was ended, we both of us were still. She with her head bowed, and her hands clasped; and I with something tugging at my heart-strings which I had not felt there for many and many a year, almost as if it had been my mother's hand;-I daresay that sometimes she does stretch out her hand, from her place among the angels, to touch my heart-strings, and I know nothing of it all the while.

As the silence still continued, I chanced to glance up, and there was old Lindon peeping at us from his hiding-place behind the screen. The look of amazed perplexity which was on his big red face struck me with such a keen sense of the incongruous that it was all I could do to keep from laughter Apparently the sight of us did nothing to lighten the fog which was in his brain, for he stammered out, in what was possibly intended for a whisper,

'Is-is she m-mad?'

The whisper,-if it was meant for a whisper-was more than sufficiently audible to catch his daughter's ears. She started- raised her head-sprang to her feet-turned-and saw her father.

'Papa!'

Immediately her sire was seized with an access of stuttering.

'W-w-what the d-devil's the-the m-m-meaning of this?'

Her utterance was clear enough,-I fancy her parent found it almost painfully clear.

'Rather it is for me to ask, what is the meaning of this! Is it possible, that, all the time, you have actually been concealed behind that-screen?'

Unless I am mistaken the old gentleman cowered before the directness of his daughter's gaze,-and endeavoured to conceal the fact by an explosion of pa.s.sion.

Do-don't you s-speak to me li-like that, you un-undutiful girl!

I-I'm your father!'

'You certainly are my father; though I was unaware until now that my father was capable of playing the part of eavesdropper.'

Rage rendered him speechless,-or, at any rate, he chose to let us believe that that was the determining cause of his continuing silent. So Marjorie turned to me,-and, on the whole, I had rather she had not. Her manner was very different from what it had been just now,-it was more than civil, it was freezing.

'Am I to understand, Mr Atherton, that this has been done with your cognisance? That while you suffered me to pour out my heart to you unchecked, you were aware, all the time, that there was a listener behind the screen?'

I became keenly aware, on a sudden, that I had borne my share in playing her a very shabby trick,-I should have liked to throw old Lindon through the window.

'The thing was not of my contriving. Had I had the opportunity I would have compelled Mr Lindon to face you when you came in. But your distress caused me to lose my balance. And you will do me the justice to remember that I endeavoured to induce you to come with me into another room.'

'But I do not seem to remember your hinting at there being any particular reason why I should have gone.'

'You never gave me a chance.'

'Sydney!-I had not thought you would have played me such a trick!'

When she said that-in such a tone!-the woman whom I loved!-I could have hammered my head against the wall. The hound I was to have treated her so scurvily!

Perceiving I was crushed she turned again to face her father, cool, calm, stately;-she was, on a sudden, once more, the Marjorie with whom I was familiar. The demeanour of parent and child was in striking contrast. If appearances went for aught, the odds were heavy that in any encounter which might be coming the senior would suffer.

'I hope, papa, that you are going to tell me that there has been some curious mistake, and that nothing was farther from your intention than to listen at a keyhole. What would you have thought-and said-if I had attempted to play the spy on you? And I have always understood that men were so particular on points of honour.'

Old Lindon was still hardly fit to do much else than splutter,- certainly not qualified to chop phrases with this sharp-tongued maiden.

'D-don't talk to me li-like that, girl!-I-I believe you're s- stark mad!' He turned to me. 'W-what was that tomfoolery she was talking to you about?'

'To what do you allude?'

'About a rub-rubbishing b-beetle, and g-goodness alone knows what,-d-diseased and m-morbid imagination,-r-reared on the literature of the gutter!-I never thought that a child of mine could have s-sunk to such a depth!-Now, Atherton, I ask you to t- tell me frankly,-what do you think of a child who behaves as she has done? who t-takes a nameless vagabond into the house and con- conceals his presence from her father? And m-mark the sequel! even the vagabond warns her against the r-rascal Lessingham!-Now, Atherton, tell me what you think of a girl who behaves like that?' I shrugged my shoulders. 'I-I know very well what you d-do think of her,-don't be afraid to say it out because she's present.'

'No; Sydney, don't be afraid.'

I saw that her eyes were dancing,-in a manner of speaking, her looks brightened under the sunshine of her father's displeasure.

'Let's hear what you think of her as a-as a m-man of the world!'

'Pray, Sydney, do!'

'What you feel for her in your-your heart of hearts!'